Regal Care nursing home employees in New Haven, West Haven and Torrington prepared to strike

Published 5:38 pm, Friday, December 16, 2016

Hundreds of union employees of Regal Care nursing homes in New Haven, West Haven, Torrington and four other Connecticut communities are set to go on strike Wednesday if a contract settlement cannot be reached by then, a union spokeswoman said.

“The owner of these seven Regal homes has continued to expand the number of homes he owns but isn’t providing wage increases to workers,” Schneider said in an email.

“Workers feel the money should be invested into the homes so a high level of quality care can be provided to residents,” she said. “Low wages cause high turnover and residents lack a consistent caregiver in those situations.”

Administrators at Regal Care’s Connecticut headquarters in Waterbury were not immediately available for comment, employees said.

Messages left for administrators at that facility as well as other Regal Care facilities were not immediately returned.

The New Haven facility, when it was known as Paradigm Healthcare Center and under different ownership, was fined $63,700 by federal authorities in 2015 for a string of medical miscues that included neglecting a patient’s wound to a point where maggots were crawling out of the skin, according to a Dec. 4, 2015, story in the Hartford Courant.

The Clifton Street nursing home also failed to notify family members or legal guardians when the medical condition of residents worsened or when treatment changed, according to inspections by the state Department of Public Health, the Courant reported.

The former Paradigm Healthcare centers in New Haven, West Haven, Torrington, Waterbury and Propect were once part of the bankrupt Marathon Healthcare Group. Then East Hartford-based Paradigm Healthcare Development Co. bought the former Marathon homes out of state receivership in 2009, the Courant reported.